Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils Chris Bachalo

Inks Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Al Vey

Colors Chris Bachalo

Lettering & Production VC’s Joe Caramanga

Issue opens with Xavier beginning his story.  The issue is essentially Storytime with Xavier, at least they can pause it.  I can’t imagine when Xavier had the time to sit down and just tell this story but that’s the beauty of comics.  Its been told thus, he can do it.  Was it Bendis that had that great quote about complaints of characters being written out of character?  Bendis’ response was that the character was written this way, thus that character has now been written in character.

This is the story of Matthew Malloy, an Omega level mutant.  Xavier, back in the Original Five days, which is also awkward as those same kids are in the present right now.  I wonder if that’s what he means by he couldn’t find them.  I doubt it, but maybe.

Xavier has just finished building Cerebro, the big dome one from the first film – so maybe this story doesn’t take place during the Original Five days as Cerebro was just a fancy helmet at his office desk.  Though I’m sure it is meant to be back in the original days as he mentions how Magneto may have recruited this new mutant before Xavier could.  Though if the team was out on a mission, how did Xavier get there?  They only had the one jet and the Rolls Royce, which would take Xavier forever to get anywhere from Upstate New York.

I wonder how he recruited the Original Five without the use of Cerebro.  I know Jean’s father called him, so that’s how he found her.  The others, I’m a little hazy on.

Xavier shows up, meets Matthew.  He’s eight.  I like that Matthew is playing with Devil Dinosaur and Fing Fang Foom toys.  His parents are not around, it is highly implied that is due to Matthew.  He gets annoyed with Xavier, mostly due to Stranger Danger and that he can feel Xavier in his mind, which is both rude and why his stranger danger sense went off.

Matthew’s power feels like the world turned inside out and pushed outwards.

Xavier continues, stating that this boy will become the poster child for what humans fear mutants are.  Uncontrollable and highly dangerous.  This kid just reminds me of Proteus and Legion, so I’m not sure why he’s a specialer case.  It isn’t like once Xavier comes across those future two, that he’s more prepared for them.

I like how Cyclops wants a break and that there is a way to pause the message.  If this was real life, it most likely would have reset the entire message and they would have to rehear everything again.  For some reason Beast is the one that figures out that the one button the machine has is the pause button.  I wonder why She-Hulk couldn’t have figured it out.  She’s the official attorney.

Cyclops just wants a minute.  Kitty is worried that Scott is just going to walk away and take his entire team with him but he just finds the situation unpleasant.  He’s heard Xavier page long monologues before, he thought he was done with all of that.

I like Doop being at the desk.  Fun now that All New Doop is an official adventure, he just looks at all of these gathered heroes and knows that they are not as privy to that story as he is.

Iceman is also freaked out, but that isn’t that unusual.

Firestar starts the first of many comments about how Xavier being married to Mystique is weird.

She-Hulk tells everyone to take a bathroom break and get something to drink – which I did and I recommend you do as well.

I like seeing Cyclops and Storm together again.  The two real leaders of the sides having a nice chat.

Storm’s comment to Scott about how he wishing he hadn’t killed Xavier is too much.  Did Wolverine get this much shit for killing Northstar while under the Hand’s influence?  He didn’t.

Storm wonders if the reason why Mystique has been so off the rails was because she lost her husband.  Scott wonders if Xavier left the school to Mystique.  She’s going to feel pretty silly for taking that teaching job at the Hellfire Academy.

Probably my favorite page of the entire issue! The scene I’ve been looking to the most.  I like how Kitty and Kurt are now just hugging friends.  They hugged in Amazing X-Men 6 and are just continuing the good times.

Some people are making a big deal of Kurt calling her, Katya, which is what Colossus use to call her.  I’m sure Kurt is just happy to see her, went with a more familiar name.

I’ve seen, also, people getting a tad out of sorts of how she didn’t call him, Fuzzy Elf, but just Elf.  I’m just happy to get the characters back together so they call call each other, Fool and Dork, I don’t care.

Kurt wants to keep talking but all Kitty wants is some sweet hugging.

Beast sees Dazzler.  She isn’t going to let the fact that Mystique is the current Mrs. Xavier stop her from killing her.

Beast makes the awesome comment about wanting to know when Cyclops’ revolution starts. Made even funnier as it is Bendis who wrote that.  He has had 25 issues to start the revolution, he keeps getting distracted.  Both of them.

Dazzler wonders if they have kids.  They have the one who is born now.  Oddly, Raze has been born for a while now.

She-Hulk tells Beast to restart the message.

Everyone wants to talk about Mystique.  Probably as the Mollary story is boring and been there done that.

Kitty wants to continue the message.  Kurt likes hearing Xavier’s voice again.  Scott does to.

The message continues.

Xavier couldn’t bring himself to kill Matthew.  So he created a kid, Charlie, to be Matty’s friend.  By doing so, he was able to install mental blocks.

Next, he put Matty into an orphanage.  That word must have brought a bunch of memories to Scott.

He essentially gave the boy a lobotomy.

We see Magik for the first time of the issue.

Xavier couldn’t limit Matthew’s power.  He couldn’t trust the Avengers nor SHIELD.

I like how mad Scott is slowly getting.

Everyday Xavier would check on Matt via Cerebro.  Once a year, he would make a trip to make sure the mental blocks were still in place.

Scott calls Xavier, a hypocrite.

Beast pauses the message.

Scott can’t believe what he is hearing.  Though it really shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Iceman offers the unhelpful advice of killing Xavier again.

I do miss seeing Bachalo’s Krakoa.

Cyclops optic blasts Iceman, just ruining the school’s infrastructure.

Kitty tells Scott to settle down.  Rachel tells him to settle down.  Scott tells her to not to try to control him.  Kitty defends Rachel.  It is nice to see those two together, as well.

Iceman returns, he recognizes that Cyclops was not in control of his actions when he killed Xavier.  So that is Rachel, and now Iceman, who are the first in years, to admit that.

Iceman threatens to freeze Scott’s colon if he were to get blasted again.  To bad Warren isn’t in the room, then we could get the Original Four X-Men guys together again, in a while.

Message continues.  One time, in college, Matt sees through Xavier’s illusion.  I love seeing the 90s Xavier hoverchair.  Matt remembers everything.  Xavier puts up stronger mental blocks.

Xavier wants the X-Men to check in on Matt.

Xavier wants Cyclops and Wolverine to gather a small team.  He recommends taking Rachel, unless there is a stronger psychic.  Which is unlikely.  Xavier wants to have the mission be one of stealth.

Xavier mentions this is the first task, there is more to his Will and Testament.

I do enjoy Xavier wanting to say “To Me, My X-Men”

The message is stopped so that a super team is made.

I love Kitty giving Kurt a big ol’ hug!